Recipe: Powidl

1. Pour enough water in your stock pot to cover the bottom. Add the halved plums and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer. Slowly boil the plums until they are thick, stirring occasionally, about 6 hours.

2. Towards the end of the boiling, stir in sugar and season to taste with cinnamon, grated lemon peel, and rum. (The measurements given in the ingredients section are the amounts that I used, to my taste.)

For reference purposes, my plums went from this:

Before I turned the heat on

to this:

Six hours of boiling, plus some sugar and spices

Not sure what to do with your powidl? I am going to attempt powidltascherl (a powidl-filled dumpling) and powidl topfen kuchen (a cake with powidl and cream cheese) at some point in the near future. The temperatures are in the 90s and our apartment does not have air conditioning, so I need to wait until a time when my family is not at home and the apartment is cool(er) to do my cooking — probably a morning next week. Stay tuned!